Cesar (Cesar Baldaccini) * (Marseille 1921-1998... Lot n° 453

(Marseille 1921–1998 Paris) Fanta-Cola, 1989, compressed cans, 31.5 x 15 x 15 cm This work is registered in the Archives Denyse Durand-Ruel, Rueil-Malmaison, France, no. 7716. This work is accompanied by a photocertificate of authenticity signed by Jean Ferrero (Galerie Ferrero, Nice). Provenance: European Private Collection (acquired from the artist) „In addition to the activity of the New Realists influenced by Pierre Restany, which was for some time considered analogous to European Pop Art by the general public, France had other important groups whose exhibits presented the diverse tendencies of the politically and sociologically permeated ‘new figurative art’. In 1961, just a year after the establishment of the flash-famous Nouveaux Réalisme, artists such as Jacques Monory, Bernard Rancillac, Valerio Adami, Peter Klasen and Gerard Fromanger organised the exhibition “Nouvelle figuration” in Paris. [...] The artist and theorist Bernard Rancillac formulated his aesthetic aspirations not only as a counter to lyrical, informal abstraction, or indeed to the geometric, kinetic abstraction of the Paris gallery scene of the fifties, but also as an exploration of social reality: the artist sought not only to represent the visible reality, but also to interpret and critically explore it. In 1965, the major exhibition “Narrative Figuration” brought together 68 artists in Paris. The titles of both exhibitions clearly show the return of the figurative, that is, of artistic commitment to reflect reality in the image and to define the topic both as a narrative and commentary on the social reality. [...] The crisis of informal painting piqued the interest of young figurative artists in a new, objective, impersonal, figurative art, which sees the objects of everyday life and fragments of everyday situations, such as advertising, shop windows, newspapers, pictorial magazines or comics presented without aesthetic prejudice within the autonomous